3stalwarts (142 page)

Dorothy swung through the door, her heavy boots thumping on the planks. The horse nickered gently.

“How are you, dearie? Tired of milking?”

“Oh no.”

Dorothy paused a moment, her homely face down-bent. Her eyes quietly searched Mary’s flushed face, turned sidewise towards her against the cow’s flank. The hair across the level forehead was curled with damp.

“It’s nice and warm in here,” said Dorothy. “It is, even with the door held open.”

Mary smiled. “You mustn’t work at this if it gets you tired, dearie.”

“It’s resting.”

“You were a long time finding them.”

“I took my time.”

“Does walking in the wind bother you?”

“No,” said Mary. “Why?”

“It does some people.”

Dorothy looked ill at ease. She bulked like a man as she leaned against the post.

“It doesn’t me, any more, Dorothy. I like it.”

“I’ve got to like it myself except in winter. In March, when the spring seems long a-coming.”

“I feel as if it let me loose.”

Dorothy nodded. “I’ll feed Squirrel.”

She left the lantern while she tended the horse. Between Mary’s knees the milk was mounting the side of the pail. She could see it white with a head of froth; its warm odor wrapped her face. The bag had lost its life and the teats their spring in her hands. Dumple was breathing out long sighs.

As Dorothy returned from feeding and watering the horse, Mary kicked back her stool and set the pail down by her feet.

“She milked well tonight, Dorothy.”

“She’s milked close to a pint better since you had her.”

Dorothy reached down for the pail with her strong hand.

“Three quarters full. I’ll make extra into a curd cheese and we’ll have pie for Jerry, eh?”

Mary smiled.

“It bothers me the last two days, Dorothy.”

“What bothers you?”

“Lifting the pail.”

“You ain’t felt very likely, have you, dearie?”

“Mornings only. Sometimes I feel dizzy in my head. This morning I was sick, Dorothy.”

“You was?”

“Yes.”

She lifted her face to Dorothy’s eyes and saw an unexpected tenderness there.

“It’s queer, isn’t it, Dorothy?”

“Maybe not queer, dearie.”

The strong mouth worked as if the older woman found speech hard to hold. Suddenly Mary smiled.

“I think I’m going to have a baby, Dorothy.”

Then Dorothy laughed. “Lord bless you, dearie! I’ve known it four weeks past.”

“You have?”

Dorothy nodded. “I’ve seen it in your eyes, Mary. There’s a way to tell.”

“How do you know?”

“I guess being wishful makes a woman look for signs. Oh, I’m glad.”

Suddenly turning away, she stamped about the stable, making ready for night. She held the door open for Mary and then closed it. Inside the dark stable there was an instant’s silence, then the heifer moaned softly.

The two women crossed the yard together. They did not speak as they got their slight supper by the hearth, but Dorothy set out a larger pewter full of milk for Mary. Mary smiled.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“You’ve not told Jerry?”

“No. Not yet.”

“When will you?”

“Not until I’m positive.”

“Me and Robert have been talking of it these past days, Mary. I hope you ain’t going to mind that. He’s most as excited as me.”

She was waxing the tops of the apple preserves she had made that day. Indian apples, she called them, though they had come with the white man.

“Why don’t you get to spinning? Spinning’s good for a body, Mary.”

“What do you want done?”

“Can you weave?”

“Yes.”

“There’s flax. Me, I’m spinning woolen. Why don’t you spin you loose-thread and made a coverlet for it? There’s time enough to fashion necessaries.”

Mary smiled. “All right. But you must let us pay for flax.”

Dorothy got out the wheel. “Time enough to argue, too.”

She placed the wheel beside the hearth and the stool handy to the treadle. She brought flax in a basket; and she stood for a while as Mary seated herself and sorted the things in readiness.

“I’ll finish up my crocks,” said Dorothy, “and then I’ll join you with the big one.”

The sharp, high whirr broke out. Dorothy kept her face to her task until she had finished it. But when she rose at last, Mary saw that her eyes were wet.

“Do you feel lonesome up there when Jerry’s not here, dearie?”

“Oh no.”

“We could move you down. It wouldn’t be no trouble. There’s room on the wall end. You could have a curtain for your privates.”

“I don’t feel lonely. I like being alone up there. You’ve made it nice for me.”

Dorothy bent down to take her boots off. She thrust her feet in moccasins and padded heavily to the corner for her wheel. She set it down on the other side of the hearth, so that the fire flowed over the floor between them. Presently the deep hum joined the little whirr. A sound like music came to life, drawing the log walls closer. Dorothy sat bolt upright on the stool, her foot beating the treadle as if she were a sergeant beating time. For a long while neither spoke.

When Dorothy at last found words, her voice was strong with the deep tones of her wheel.

“It’s the feeling that gets into a woman’s body makes the wheel a comfort in a house. Seems as though it eased her body. Seems as though it gave her time to remember all the things she’s forgot.”

Mary nodded. Dorothy saw the sweet submissive bend of her neck. Her hands and her foot were flying, but her body swayed gently and her eyes were still. In the quiet of the cabin the thread was like life in her hands.

“I remember,” said Dorothy, still in her deep voice. “I mind me how I was a little girl. My father had a farm. I had four brothers and three sisters. There was a creek branch by the house. We had a room with pictures in it, set in frames; I mind my mother setting there and spinning. There was a picture of a church that had a high white steeple.”

“Were you a little girl then?”

“I was a long-legged coltish thing, I recollect. More like a boy. Lissa, and Prue, and Lawy were more girl-like, like my mother. I was the oldest-born. I ran like a wild colt in the fields. It seemed I never could get onto spinning and I never learned to weave. It didn’t seem I ever would take comfort spinning. I even played at boy with other girls.”

“Didn’t any boys come after you?”

“No. Never one. I wasn’t made for boys to play with. I could throw a boy in wrestling. It didn’t seem I ever would have a man. I didn’t want it. Not till I saw Robert. It’s a queer thing, Mary, what stirs a woman so.”

Mary was quiet.

“I didn’t care that he was poor. I didn’t mind what Pa told me of it. Not that he didn’t like Robert. But it didn’t make no difference to me. It never has. But then I wanted a girl baby in the house. It didn’t seem I hankered after boys. But we never had one.”

The solemn deep tones of her wheel rose unfaltering.

“Where did you meet Jerry, Mary?”

“In Albany, Dorothy.”

“Did you just meet?”

“Yes. I’d just landed.”

“He’s done well.”

“Yes, he’s done well.”

“He’ll make you a fine place some day, I’ve no doubt.”

“I’d like a little place some day that was my own.”

“He’ll make you one, I have no doubt. Do you think he wants a girl-child or a boy-child?”

“I don’t know.”

“Which do you?”

“It doesn’t seem to matter to me.”

“I’d think he’d want a boy-child. Most men do— young men, that is.”

“He’s never said. Sometimes it seems he doesn’t think of nothing excepting his work only.”

“This canal.”

“Yes.”

“It’s a great thing. It’s taking a long time. I think of seeing boats maybe. Esquire Forman has been telling Robert maybe he’ll lay out a town where Cossett’s is. He owns that land.”

“Does he?”

“Yes. We’d be right close to town then. Think of it! A village close. I wonder what he’d name it?”

“Has he said?”

“He told Robert he might call such a village Syracuse. A strange name. A book-name he said it was.”

“I never heard of it.”

“Me neither.”

The wheels spun steadily. The two women’s faces remained calm, as if their spirits had absorbed the comfort of the ordered birth of thread.

“Where will you be planning for your child to come, Mary?”

“I ain’t thought, Dorothy.”

“December, January, February, March,” the deep wheel hummed and the thread in Mary’s plastic fingers grew. “April, May, June,” Dorothy’s voice was hushed; “July and August. An August baby. They’ll have finished nigh to four locks, then. Out westward.”

“Maybe I’ll stay here. I think Jerry wouldn’t want hampering with me and a baby.”

Dorothy’s voice trembled.

“That would make us glad. I’d take care of you, dearie. I’d do everything a body could. I’d labor for you, all I could.”

“I’d like having it here— where now I’ve got a friend.”

“Oh, I’d be so glad, Mary.”

“How would Robert?”

“Robert too.”

“Jerry’s working so hard,” Mary said. “Maybe he’d feel easier if I was here.”

“They say Dr. Earl in Onondaga is well liked. He’d come, I have no doubt.”

“Does he come this far?”

“Oh yes. He’s a nice man— a youngish man. He’s gentle, they do say. Women like a younger man, I’ve heard. Me, I don’t know. I don’t know anything. But I’ll make comfort for you, Mary.”

“I’ll be all right, I guess. I’m healthy.”

“It doesn’t frighten you?”

“It doesn’t seem to frighten me. To think of it displaces things. As though everything I’d knowed was past.”

Dorothy nodded.

“You’d best tell Jerry.”

“I’ve thought of it. Is it bad not to?”

“I don’t know, Mary. Some say and some say not. Mostly some say not. I believe, though, it is a woman’s feelings make the difference.”

“I feel as though— I feel that something’s past of both of us sometimes. We’ve got no right.”

“Perhaps it’s so.”

“And then I feel I’m debted so to Jerry that it must be right to ease him.”

“He’d understand.”

“He thinks about his working. When he visits, then I feel he’s finding something. Sometimes he don’t seem happy when he comes, and when he goes he seems as though he’d relished something. Then he’s tender to me. I try to see out of his eyes, but I don’t understand.”

“A man builds on it. But with us it’s different.”

“Sometimes I’m afraid he’ll go off tired of me.”

“That he couldn’t, dearie. Don’t you fear. I mark him when he comes. His face is burning after hunger. He loves you.”

“You mustn’t ever tell. He took me with him because I had no place to go. It may be he was sorry for me. I was a redemptioner, Dorothy.”

“Poor dearie. Did he buy your papers?”

“Yes.”

“And brought you with him?”

“Yes.”

Dorothy was not shocked.

“He gave me back my papers and he married me. A minister married us. Jerry fashioned out this ring himself.”

She turned her wrist to show the horseshoe nail.

“He’d used up all the money that he’d saved to buy a place, and bought my papers.”

Dorothy’s face was glowing.

“He wouldn’t let me work to earn him back his money. He has a pride of it. But I worked in Utica and saved some money. I did washing. Thirty dollars I have saved from it. But I wouldn’t dare to pay it to him. I thought I’d save it till we had a place and then I’d buy with it. As if I had brought money to my wedden.”

“Poor dearie, don’t you worry over notions.”

“Maybe he’ll like my having him his child. That would bring him something.”

“Do you love him mightily?”

“Yes.” Mary’s voice was lost in the wheel.

Dorothy was silent.

“I love him so that if he should forget me I’d creep off from him to leave him free.”

“Don’t talk so,” Dorothy said sharply. “Those are notions some women get at your time. You mustn’t think of those things. They are bad. Like bearing out of wedlock. Nurse-wives tell you that.”

Mary sighed and let her hands fall.

“I’ve spun and spun. I’m tired now.”

Dorothy rose awkwardly, went over to Mary as she left her stool, and put her arms about her.

“You must rest you, dearie. I’ll tend you. And I’ll try not to pester you, though, because I am so glad of it.”

She bent down to kiss Mary. The hair, curling over the forehead, was still damp. She felt the body in her arms shake suddenly with sobs.

“Don’t be afraid, Mary. Don’t be afraid. I’m tending of you.”

2

“There isn’t any smell of men”

Once a week the teamster, Roger Hunter, hauled in from Manlius, his great Pennsylvania wagon rolling in the snow on silent wheels, and the bells of his team crystal-clear with frost. His hands and face kept their summer brown, showing no winter change. He did not seem to feel the cold; his hand that cracked the fifteen-foot whip was unmittened.

He spent one night at Melvilles, coming back from the lock with Jerry. Melville was away, but Mary and Dorothy cooked them a special supper. Cheese pie, and a haunch of venison that Melville had been given by a woodsman, potatoes roasted with the meat, and winter squash. Dorothy brought out pumpkin flip to drink and the two men lingered, talking while the women spun.

“Is there any snow in Utica?” asked Dorothy.

Hunter said, “No. I wish there was. I wish it would do one thing or the other. Every haul I make I am uneasy.”

His face was still as he listened to the wind.

“A southward change would bring snow or rain. It’s a bad thing, getting caught with a heavy wagon by a snowstorm. Four years ago I undertook a trip in December and got snowed up halfway out of Jerusalem. I had to walk back with the horses. You couldn’t move that wagon. It stayed where it was till April.”

“Jerusalem?”

“Yes, on Crooked Lake. It’s where the Universal Friends have settled. That she-preacher, Jemima Wilkinson, brought them there. I was a young man then and fell in love with her.” He grinned and sipped his flip. “Most men did. She was a strange woman, way past middle years, and there was I, who’d been by no means good, in love with her. All the men was.”